


Timeless

by Jade4813



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Crisis on Infinite Earths Crossover Event (CW DC TV Universe), F/M, Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Crossover Event (CW DC TV Universe)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-09 04:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20495327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade4813/pseuds/Jade4813
Summary: Once again, Barry and Iris must make the decision to sacrifice everything they hold dear to save the world - and in the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths, they remember everything that they have lost. My gift to @sunshinehappier on Twitter for her contribution to the 2019 Westallen Sock Drive!





	Timeless

** _Five months Post-Crisis_ **

_Iris. Remember Iris._

He was in the heart of the speed force, further than any speedster had ever traveled before. Where time itself lost meaning. Occasionally, figures appeared in flickering scenes around him, but they had no significance to him. A man with dark, shoulder-length hair a lopsided smile. An older man with short-cut hair and glasses, sitting in a wheelchair. A redheaded woman standing next to a man with blonde hair. A woman with long, wavy brown hair and a syringe in her hand. A blonde in glasses, then one without, then with again. A tall man with short blonde hair and a scowl.

The faces meant nothing to him. Were they supposed to?

_Iris. Remember Iris. Remember Iris._

He repeated the words to himself like a mantra. When he felt the last of his memories slip away, he closed his eyes and whispered them to himself. A prayer that, after all the things the speed force had taken from him, it would leave him this.

_Remember Iris…remember…remember her. Remember…who?_

Her name slipped away from him, like water between his fingers, and he slowed imperceptibly. He could no longer recall why he’d been running so long. He no longer remembered why he’d had to.

His muscles seized, every muscle in his body begging him to stop running. The pain would stop if he did, he knew. He would find peace here, in the heart of the speed force. But, still, he fought desperately to keep going, knowing that all would be lost if he stopped. Not having the first idea of what that would be.

In the end, his body couldn’t take anymore. More tired than he’d ever been, Barry fell to his knees with a tortured sob. He’d forgotten something. Something important. Something he’d sworn never to forget. He pressed his palms against his eyes and sucked in a shaky breath, trying to remember.

There was someone he loved, more than anything in the world. More than life itself. And he’d lost her, bit by bit, until the speed force had even taken her name from him. Who was she? Why did she mean so much to him? And how could he feel the ache of her loss when he couldn’t even remember her name? Could barely even remember his own?

“Bring her back to me,” he begged the speed force swirling around him. “Please. Bring her back to me.”

_“Come back to me, Barry,” _a voice whispered as his mind tried to cling to whatever memories of his life that remained. _“Promise me that, whatever happens, you won’t stop running until you come home to me. Promise!”_

Faces continued to flicker around him, but none of them had any meaning. A man with short, dark hair kissing a brunette in a wedding dress. A man wearing sunglasses, with some sort of light emanating from his palm. A blonde woman with tears running down her cheeks as she reached for him. An older man with sadness behind his smile as he pressed his palm against a pane of glass standing between them.

The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, wrapping her hand around his neck and pulling his head down onto her shoulder. He didn’t remember who she was, but the sight of her face caused something to ache inside his chest. When her image disappeared again, he could swear he felt his heart break all over again.

“Bring her back to me. Please. _Please!_ Let me see her again,” he begged the speed force as more and more images flickered around him. “The pretty woman from before. Please… I’ll do anything. Just show her to me again.”

And then she was before him, so beautiful it hurt. Though her eyes shone with tears, she looked determined as she reached her hand. “Come home to me, Barry.”

He didn’t know who she was. Didn’t know what was a dream, what was the speed force itself, and what was real. But maybe it didn’t even matter anymore. If this was a dream, then perhaps this fantasy would bring him a measure of peace, in this place outside of reality.

Tilting his head to the side, he considered the figure in front of him. He didn’t remember her, but something in his heart longed for her anyway. Somewhere deep inside, he knew he would follow her anywhere. “I…I think I dreamt of you,” he murmured, reached out his hand toward her.

* * *

** _Four months post-Crisis_ **

She dreamt of the day Barry had left her to go into the speed force. In her dreams, Barry begged her to ask him to stay. He would, she knew it. All she had to do was ask. _Stay with me. _Three little words, and he wouldn’t sacrifice himself for the good of the world. Three little words, and they would find another way.

But in her dreams, as in reality, she didn’t speak those words. The caught in her throat, choking her with the force of her need. She’d thought she was being so brave, letting him go. Again. Losing him, as she had so many times before. In her dreams she wondered, as she hadn’t dared consider that day…had he known how much it hurt her to let him go? Or did part of him think she didn’t ask him to stay because she didn’t care? She loved him, and in the light of day, she knew he knew how much. But in the lonely solitude of her dreams, her fears mocked her. Making her wonder if, deep down, he’d gone to his death thinking perhaps she didn’t.

Had she even told him she loved him, before he left? Had she even spoken the words?

When she awoke, her face was wet with tears, and she curled her legs against her chest and rocked back and forth. Seeking the comfort he could no longer provide. “Barry, come back to me,” she whispered into the dark. As she had so many times, so many years before. Sitting by his hospital bed, holding his limp hand in her own. “Come back to me.”

And like back then, her plea received no response. She was alone.

~~~

“Don’t take her from me. Please,” he whispered as he closed his eyes and tried to picture her face in his mind. But try as he might, he couldn’t quite remember the curve of her cheek or the exact color of her eyes. Then, a moment or an eternity later, he couldn’t picture her face at all.

He had lost her.

No. He wouldn’t allow it. He had given up so much already in his self-appointed quest to save the world. His love for Iris was the one thing he had resolved never to sacrifice. Not for this world. Not even for all of them.

_As long as I’ll remember Iris, I’ll be all right,_ he promised himself. _Remember Iris. Remember Iris._

* * *

** _Three months post-Crisis_ **

“Again,” she yelled, coming to a stop on the treadmill. She bent over grabbed the stitch in her side as she sucked in a few deep breaths, trying to ready herself for another attempt. Without his powers as Vibe, Cisco had been working on some technology that would help Iris access the speed force, but she had to run as fast as she could to attempt the breach. Thus far, however, their efforts had met nothing but failure. She was physically and emotionally exhausted, but she refused to stop trying.

“Iris, you’ve been at this for hours,” Caitlin offered gently. “You need to take a break. Maybe try to get some sleep.”

She gave her head a sharp shake. “I’ll rest when Barry’s back,” she replied firmly. Then, softening her tone at Ralph’s look of surprise, she tried to explain, “I just…when I think about what he might be going through in there…how can I sleep until I know he’s okay?” She sucked in a shaky breath. “I know everyone’s tired, but can we try it again? Just one more time. And then I’ll rest, I promise.”

Not that it would do any good. When she tried to sleep, she remembered what it felt like to lie next to Barry. The steady rise and fall of his chest. The weight of his arm around her shoulders. The warmth of his kiss. Every time the memory came flooding back, she felt like it tore another piece out of her heart. She didn’t know how much more she could take. She focused on the strength of her resolve to drown out the ache in her muscles as she started to run again.

She had to get him back. She had to.

~~~

_Remember her. Remember Iris_.

She was slowly slipping away from him. He could feel it. Each moment in this place stretched like an eternity, and it felt like the harder he tried to hold on to her memory, he faster it slipped away.

The speed force shifted around him, taking shape. When it stepped forward, it wore a face he knew had once had meaning for him, but he could no longer remember why. “You’re starting to forget, Barry. You have to hold onto her. It’s your only hope. Remember her. Remember Iris,” it whispered, watching him sadly as he raced away, further and further into the speed force’s depths.

He closed his eyes and summoned her face. The light in her eyes when she laughed. The warmth of her hand against his cheek.

_Remember Iris, and you’ll be all right. Remember her. Remember Iris._

Try as he might, he could no longer recall the day they met.

* * *

** _Two months post-Crisis_ **

She sat at the desk, typing furiously away at her computer. She had been in the same position for hours, hardly noticing the passage of time as day faded into night.

“Cisco, do you have any other notes about, um…what about the time Barry went into the speed force looking for the meta human cure? Can you bring them to me?”

His face was sad and resigned as he looked over at her. “Iris, don’t you think you should take a break? You’re exhausted. You can’t help Barry if you can’t keep your eyes open.”

Her mouth twisted. “I’ll be fine,” she said firmly. Her voice softening slightly, she added, “Thank you. I appreciate your concern, Cisco. Really. But I have to do this. If we compile everything we know about the speed force, maybe…maybe we can find something…anything. Anything that can help Barry.”

Her gaze implored him to understand, and he nodded. She didn’t understand the scientific intricacies of the speed force, but she knew how to do this. How to conduct research, to pull facts together. To create a full picture from scraps of information.

As he turned to his computer to find the notes she requested, she let her eyes stray to the place she had stood by Barry’s side as they announced their engagement. She had been so happy that day. It had seemed that nothing could ever diminish their happiness.

They didn’t know then how rare those moments of unsullied joy would be, when they could bask in their love for each other without the rest of the world intervening. Without having to bear the many losses that would diminish their happiness.

~~~

Barry was growing tired, but he forced himself to run even harder. He couldn’t give in to weariness. The anti-matter bomb followed close behind him, and he had to make sure he took it to the heart of the speed force, where the shifting nexus of potential realities would hold it forever in stasis. He ached to stop running, but the thought of Iris kept him going.

Images appeared in the speed force as he raced by. Joe, laughing as he picked up his newborn daughter. Cisco, smirking as one of his inventions proved to be a success. Caitlin, her eyes going frosty blue as she transformed into Killer Frost.

But most of all, Iris. Iris, jumping up and down excitedly when her first article made the front page. Iris, a little crinkle forming in her brow as she stared at her computer in concentration. Iris, her eyes filled with love as she rolled over in bed and curled up against him, resting her head on his shoulder with a sleepy sigh.

But he had forgotten the exact sound of her voice. And though he tried, he couldn’t remember the sound of her laughter.

* * *

** _One month post-Crisis_ **

Iris sat up on the couch and rubbed her eyes. She was so tired, her weariness sinking into her very bones. And yet she found herself unable to sleep. She couldn’t even lie in the bed she’d once shared with Barry. But that was no surprise. She’d been unable to do so the last time he’d disappeared into the speed force, with no expectation he would ever return. Why should this time be any different?

Her gaze traveled to the television, which she had taken to running on low volume twenty-four hours a day. Unable to bear the silence that fell around through the apartment in Barry’s absence, stifling her ability to breathe. The reporter’s tone was grave as she stood next to a wallpapered with homemade missing persons signs and said into the camera, “Today marks one month since Central City’s own superhero, the Flash, disappeared in the battle that shook the city. But hundreds of others are still missing, their loved ones posting their names and pictures across buildings downtown, desperate for any news…”

The world publicly mourned for the Flash, but Iris’s grief for her lost husband was private. Barry Allen’s name was listed among the missing, but unlike the families of the others who had been lost in the battle, Iris didn’t even have false hope to hold on to, that he might still be found injured but alive. That perhaps he was trapped on another world in the multiverse but might one day find his way home. That he might one day return to her.

Though she tried to rally against it, in her heart, she remembered the warning that had been carried to her from the future. Team Flash often tried to defy fate, but this one time, fate might win. Barry might be lost to her forever.

Biting back a cry of despair, she reached for the remote, desperate to change the channel. As she reached across the coffee table, her arm brushed against a picture frame, sending it toppling to the floor. It seemed almost more than she could bear to bend down and retrieve it, but she knew what she would see, even before she turned it over.

It was a photo she’d taken with Barry on their wedding day, before doppelgängers from another dimension had invaded and attempted to kill them all. Prior to the ceremony, Barry and Iris had stolen a few moments together. The photographer had captured the moment that the two of them had caught sight of each other for the first time.

The picture reminded her of the love he’d had on his face that day, when he caught sight of her in her white wedding dress. The memory speared through her chest, straight into her heart. But she didn’t need a picture to remember the love in Barry’s eyes when he looked at her. He’d looked at her like that for almost their entire lives.

Oh, what she’d give to see that look in his eyes once more.

~~~

_Remember Iris. Remember her._

Inside the speed force, Barry closed his eyes and remembered the time he’d raced past the coffee house, just in time to see Iris laugh at something someone had said. She had the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. He held the memory of that smile in his heart, knowing that, as long as he remembered Iris, he would find his way out of the heart of the speed force. She was his lightning rod, and the love they shared would always find a way to bring him home.

He could no longer remember the smell of her perfume.

* * *

“I-I have to do this,” Barry said firmly, staring at the devastation around them. “I have to go.”

“Barry, it’s a suicide mission!” Ralph protested.

Cisco nodded. “You were the one who told us about the dangers of going that far into the speed force!”

Barry nodded. He knew the risks. Taking the anti-matter bomb into the heart of the speed force might be the only way to save the multiverse, but no speedster had ever gone that far in before. There was no guarantee that he would ever find his way out. Or that his mind would remain intact if he did. Time worked differently within the speed force. What would be a month for Iris and the rest of the world might feel like a thousand years for him. There was a good chance he’d go mad long before he found his way back.

But it was a chance he had to take – perhaps the only chance any of them had to save the multiverse. And so he explained desperately, “I know, but I’m the only one who can do this. You know it, too.” There had already been casualties in this battle to save endless worlds, with heroes either fallen or trapped in other universes. Without Vibe’s powers, it was unclear when – or if – they would ever be able to return.

When Iris stepped forward, the rest of the group exchanged glances and stepped away, letting the two of them have a moment alone. But the two of them didn’t even notice. Their eyes were solely on each other as she reached up and cupped her hands around the back of his neck. Tears were streaming down her face as she pressed her forehead against his own. Without saying a word, he increased his speed, bringing her into Flashtime with him. It was perhaps foolish of him to waste his energy like this, but if this was the last moment they would ever share, he wanted to make it last as long as he could.

If only he could make it last forever.

“You told me once that you were scared that if I told you to stay, you wouldn’t be able to do what you needed to do,” she whispered.

Feeling his heart rending in two, he held her tightly to him. “I remember.” And he’d meant it. Even through his resolve, he knew that if she begged him to stay right now, he wouldn’t be able to find the strength to leave her. “But, Iris, it’s the only way to save the multiverse. The only way to save you.” Lifting one hand to her cheek, her brushed her tears away with his thumb.

“I just…I can’t keep losing you like this. We were supposed to spend the rest of our lives together.” He could hear the pain in her voice, echoing the ache in his own heart, and for a moment, he was tempted to stay. It was only the thought of all that would be lost that helped him retain his resolve. He could lose everything else in the world, but losing her would break him. He would sacrifice anything – including his life – if it would keep Iris safe.

Sucking in a shaky breath, she clutched him desperately as she blurted, “Let me go in instead. Let me do this. I-I know I’m not a speedster, but I’ve been in the speed force before. Maybe I could do it. Let me try, please! Then you-you could come in and save me. Y-you could bring me back. I know you could.” He didn’t even have to say anything; he could see that she recognized the hopelessness of her request even as she spoke the words. “Please, Barry,” she whispered. “You’ve seen the newspaper. If you go in there…I could lose you forever. I can’t go through that again.

Pulling her hard against him, Barry cupped his hand around her neck and drew her to him for a kiss. Full of desperation and hope, he poured everything he felt for Iris into this kiss – quite possibly the last kiss they would ever share. Closing his eyes, he tried to etch this moment indelibly into his memory – the sound of her voice, the taste of her kiss, the press of her lips against his.

“I wish there was another way, but there isn’t. I have to do this, Iris. There’s no other choice.” he told her in an urgent tone as he released her and stepped away, slowing time to let it pass as it would. Each passing second stealing away the future they had dreamt of sharing. Every part of him longed to hold onto her forever, and so he knew he had to let her go in order to find the strength to do what needed to be done. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I always will.”

She shook her head, tears falling down her cheeks. “Don’t say it like that. That sounds like a goodbye. Just…come back to me, Barry. Promise me that whatever happens, you won’t stop running until you come home to me. Promise!”

“I promise, Iris.”

Every part of him wanted to stay there with her, and so he had to remind himself of what was at stake in order to pull himself away. If he didn’t go, he would lose her anyway. Their entire world would be gone. As he turned, however, he heard the defeat and despair in her voice as she whispered, “I’ve always loved you, too. And I always will.”

Her words almost shattered his resolve, and he shook with the need to turn around. To pull her into his arms and hold her until she stopped crying. Focusing on the anti-matter bomb and all it could do, all that it could erase from existence, he forced himself to race forward, knowing the bomb would be drawn to the energy of endless possible worlds that he carried with him through his connection to the speed force and follow him inside.

Pushing himself faster than he’d ever run before, he closed his eyes and thought about the woman he loved. She was the love of his life. His lightning rod. As long as he remembered her, he could get through this. As long as he remembered her, everything would be all right.

_Remember Iris_, he told himself as he pushed himself harder than he ever had before, running deeper and deeper into the speed force. He just had to remember her. Her face, her touch. The smell of her shampoo and the sound of her laugh. Above all, his love for her. As long as he remembered her, everything would be all right.

_Iris. Remember Iris. Remember her…_


End file.
